We have no real agenda for this trip other than, lets get to the hot spot for January and eventually make our way back north. When we were in Tecolote for a few days, we scouted out our next forward stop. We thought that La Ventana would be a good little village to tour, since it was basically at the end of a road, on the beach. Heaven forbid, if we didn’t have a beach to perch on for a few days! I’m sure you won’t be surprised when I tell once again, not a single sign on the highway telling us we were climbing (thank goodness we have an altimeter, so Todd could see that we were climbing at a gradual pace, but enough for him to think, hmmm why is the bus acting weird!). And when we got to top, we rounded a few curves and immediately proceeded down 2300 feet, straight down (no idea what that grade was and we do have a Jake brake, but lets just say, once we turned left off the highway, the brakes were smoking!)
As soon as we got to the main road to town we could see hundreds of kite boarders in the air. Apparently, this is a meca for kite boarding schools. Such a meca, that groups/schools of kiteboarders from US (Oregon) and Canada (Van Island) set up camp right on the main beach camp ground. We took a bike ride through this to check it out. It is a weird mix of high end motorhomes with tent shrouds and side tents, mid-grade RV’s with tent shrouds and side tents and just tenters with side tents, in a makeshift tent city nicknamed Gringo Ghetto! Although everyone there is basically rich white people, trying to live the life of a hippie – a bit of an oxymoron. Everyday around noon when the wind picks up, there is mass exodus out the campground, and everyone takes to the water to kite board!
So this cute small down of 200 people enlarges to (I’m guessing) 2-3000 people in the winter. It’s a weird gringo/Mexican vibe mix of people.
We had a hard time finding a spot to park our big rig, since there were not a lot of open spaces anywhere and we don’t like being jammed in next to people. We found a spot on the top end of the El Sargento beach, where we perched for 4 days – there were maybe 3 other campers in front of us. This was by far the best beach camping stop in all La Ventana. Right under shady palm trees with a municipal police station across the street. 
Perfect spot!
Check out this amazing spot! We are on the town beach, free camping!
The other great thing we heard about this town was the amount of mountain bike trails. We downloaded the TrailForks app, and it grades the trails like ski trails (green, blue and black). We thought this was great and figured we would checkout a green trail. Until we got to the beginning of the green trail – well all trails actually in this area are various types of sand and you need a mountain bike with fat tires! So we kept to the main street sidewalks instead and this gave us a steady bike ride each day. Although you do have to watch out for sidewalk hazards….
The sidewalk ends and then there’s a big crevice. We see these everywhere!
The sunrises continue to be amazing, and you know its morning when you hear ALL the feral dogs barking! There are SO MANY dogs laying around everywhere and so far, other than a tail wag and bark, none of them are dangerous or crazy. But we’ve seen a few times that the dogs sort out their own hierarchy and its interesting to watch. Then you throw a gringo in with the domesticated dog and they have no idea how to deal with it! Quite entertaining (can you tell we aren’t per owners?!)
On our second day touring around in cindy the civic (which we have determined, was the best pick of our existing cars, however, really we need a high clearance 4 WD vehicle in Baja – there are just too many opportunities for getting stuck) we saw all these people sitting in rock piles along the beach and wondering WTF?! When we drove past again, we stopped, and Todd realized it was natural hotsprings coming out of the beach rock at the shore, and people were building their own hot tub pools, including people like (36&28) Danny and Tina! So, we made sure we brought our swim suits, a full cooler and beach attire the next day and had a great time hanging out with them, while enjoying the hotspring pools we made!
Hot spring pools!
Danny and Tina, we love you guys!
We are pretty sure that we are the worst tourist for spending money and supporting the community. Because we are so self sufficient, shop in bulk and cook all our meals – we have hardly eaten out. I think once in Vegas and twice in La Paz, but nothing in any of the small centres. We have made A LOT of our own tacos and salsa, since the ingredients are always available and there is a tortilleria in every town. We did buy a dozen corn tortillas for 10 pesos ($1.40). And we eat them for breakfast, lunch and supper until they are gone! Food Safety Jill is pretty sure that the production of tortillas at the front door of the shop is fine and there is nothing better than a fresh warm tortilla for a bike riding snack. So at least we’ve spent $1.40!